No, Not Cell Groups... I Hate Cell Groups
"Oh, so you mean just like cell groups!" That was the comment from a good friend recently, as I was describing the community I envision and wrote about in "They'll Bloom On Their Own." So I'm not very good at describing this yet, because if you read "cell groups" in that article... that's not what I meant.
There are probably some churches really using cell groups effectively. Surely there must be or else the rest of us would never travel around the country to conferences and workshops to hear "how they do it." But the concept smacks of all the way-too-much church that I'm specifically trying to get away from. My point is that we cannot possibly have an close knit, loving, open and vulnerable community beyond a certain number of people. But the answer is not to stay small by becoming exclusive and self-focused.
I'm also not talking about those sick little living room ordeals in which no one ever gets any healing or makes any changes. They just like to come over, drink your coffee and talk about their latest crisis. You've been in groups like that, right? When no one opens up or shares anything authentic because the one person that does open up opens way up and scares off everyone that was looking for relationships, not psycho-therapy. I am pulling my mental model from the life-changing experience of Easter Camp in South Africa.
Of course I realize that a mountain top experience like camp is not "normal" over the long haul. I wouldn't try to hold on to the mountain top, but there are some principles around which it was arranged that I think can work as the backbone for a permanent spiritual community. Imagine the set-up with me: We were camping in a large, rectangle-shaped field. The entire perimeter was divided into individual campsites. Those sites were then occupied by the various "house churches" of the host church, Fountain Vineyard. So if you look at the scene from a helicopter it looks like 500 people all camping together, but on the ground we are actually living life in much small groups. Life is lived in smaller groups!
Each campsite was a little community of its own. People showed up to their vacant space of grass and built it together. In my little community, people did breakfast at their leisure, but we all ate lunch and dinner together. Other communities did it differently. We worked together, cleaning the bathroom facilities around the camp (that was our job - other communities had other jobs). We sat together and talked and laughed and prayed for people and made fun of each other and listened to one another and argued with one another and everything people do while living in community. People would wander over from other communities and talk about what we had that they didn't or what they had that we were missing.
Then, periodically, an announcement would be made: "We're playing cricket in 20 minutes for anyone that wants to join." "There is a bicycle race for the kids in half an hour." "The snack shop will be open after the evening meeting for those that want to hang out." "Some people are going to pray together 1 hour before the morning meeting if you're interested..." Are you getting the idea? Not rules - not forced - not administrated - not obligated. Invited. Then there were the morning and evening worship meetings for everyone. We sang together and prayed together and there was teaching and everything else that happens at church. But life was lived in the community. We all went back "home" and applied all that stuff to real, natural, life.
When we begin to feel oppressed and burdened by life and seek out church as our refuge and hiding place from life, we're doing something wrong. Church is not designed to function as a defensive fortress. Sanctuary? Yes. Hiding from real life? No. But this is long enough... more on that in the next one.
Scott Bane
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in your last post, I took from it that you were seeking a specific "atmosphere" not a tiny sheltered closed in looking only at ourselves. I love the atmosphere you are looking for, I would think, or maybe hope that you are seeking a non-condemning place. Sort of like you found in Africa, this is church and then we have over here and over here, if you would like not because you are guilted into it and not because you feel like you have to but if you want to you can join. Am I correct?
I never liked the "organized" cell groups either, My hope would be that friendships and love would be created amongst people and that they would seek to be together and enjoy and pray with each other and that we learn from each other, I like the unorganized cell groups, you know the ones where you make friends and lasting relationships!
Okay. I've been reading all these posts and the comments as well. Lots of good stuff has been said. Here's the question that keeps coming to my mind: What is preventing us as Christians from having the kind of "community" that you speak about and that we "commenters" seem to want for ourselves and our families? I can think of quite a few things that keep us from it, but I'm interested to see if others have different ideas about what the roadblocks to TRUE Christian "culture" are. I firmly believe that CHRISTIAN CULTURE should lead - it should be predominant - it should affect and change the rest of the world. Isn't that what Jesus did? Isn't that what the disciples did? "Those who have turned the world upside down have now come here?" (Brenda's paraphrase) We are called to "subdue the earth," for heaven's sake! (no pun intended) While the church sits around and tries to figure out how to become "relevant" the the world's culture, aren't we forgetting that Jesus told us to "preach the Gospel" and if we would do that, God would work with us and we would see signs and wonders coming to pass? So, what is keeping us from doing and being what God by His Holy Spirit is calling us to do and be?
I get what you are trying to say...I think that Carl George would read what you have described about the Easter Camp and say, boy those cell groups were working really well :)...What you can't stand are the phony--baloney groups, the inauthentic community, the we are going to talk about this book for six weeks, or 40 days, or we are going to go deeper into the sermon kinds of groups that are the training wheels that are used in most churches.
I have been in all of those kinds of groups, and especially the ones where the neurotic and psychotic go to stalk those Christians just trying to follow Jesus...(One group I was in was disbanded because the hostess-leader could not get the people to quit stopping by her house at all times of the days and night with their marital and other problems, she found herself hiding behind her couch until one of them went away after spending 15 minutes pounding on the door saying, I know you are in there, open up! :))
I remember how irritated I was when the people in one of our groups started hanging out together, going to local theater offerings, etc. As a leader, I thought, wait a minute, they are doing stuff without me...then I thought about it, and that was exactly the whole point of the thing, to get people to experience real living community.
Keep working on this you are dealing with some good stuff here...
Chrissy, you are exactly right with the word "atmosphere." That's exactly what I want. If the goal is to create an atmosphere, we do not need to add the pressure of creating the groups. If the environment is right, things will grow in it. But there is no way to force a palm tree to grow on the North Pole.
I can't take any more programs and plots by the church to "get to people." I can't stand any more "us" and "them" thinking. We are all just us! I love what Brenda - ehem - Mom - wrote about the power being there as we need it. We are not living in some sort of system where there is no unction or blessing of the Spirit. The same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead dwells within each one of us! To answer the question of what is stopping us, my own answer is fear / intimidation. I live with a constant, "what if it doesn't work" apprehension. But when we start to realize that power is not an option within the Christian life, but a command we approach it differently.
Lay hands on the sick, cast out demons and raise the dead - read Matthew 10 again - those are commands! God is serious about rushing out to meet people who are far from him.
Scott, I have always loved the way Brenda speaks it! She is truthful, what is keeping us from the community! Surely it is not the church we need! My thing is just to live life in front of people. Be who I am! I am a child of God and sometimes I mess up and sometimes I have to ask forgiveness and sometimes I have to forgive! If we could all be less judgemental of each other, the world would be our "community"!